Welcome to A Brief History of Stanford-Arizona State. I’ll be looking back at all of the ups and downs of this PAC-12 series from its beginning right up to the present day.
The Arizona State football program began in 1897 before Arizona was even a state. The Tempe Normal School played one game, a 38-20 loss to the Phoenix Indians. It was an inauspicious start, but eventually the program would flourish. In 1902, the Tempe Normal played their first game against the University of Arizona, igniting their biggest rivalry and starting a partnership in athletics that continues to this day.